A sex maniac was sentenced to 31 years in jail and 24 strokes of the cane today for catfishing at least 20 young girls into a “sextortion” scheme.
Chinese national Lin Rongxin, 34, pleaded guilty on Nov. 28 to seven charges of rape, threatening to circulate lewd photos or videos and instigating a victim to secretly film other girls in the shower.
A further 57 charges were taken into consideration during the sentence.
Lin, who is married with a son, threatened the girls aged 14 to 19 that he will distribute sexually degrading videos of them and manipulate them into having sex with him. He also asked some of them to secretly film their flatmates while they were changing or showering.
Lin did this by using multiple false personas and posed as a 19-year-old Lin Zhi Xuan with a fake photo through apps like WeChat and TanTan from 2018 to June 2019. He got them to send lewd photos and videos of themselves and used them to blackmail them for money and sexual favors.
Most of the victims were Chinese nationals who were studying in Singapore.
At least five girls performed the sexual acts on video while the rest blocked him.
As if that wasn’t enough, Lin made the girls have sex with another man named Huang Yi, which turned out to be himself. The court revealed that he had herpes and Hepatitis B during the sex.
14-year-old girlfriend
Lin met a 14-year-old on the TanTan app and asked her to be his girlfriend. He then accused her of infidelity by using another profile. The girl sent him nudes and performed sexual favors for him at least 10 times.
Lin then extorted her money and received 5,200 yuan (S$995) and raped her in the men’s toilet at an unnamed industrial building when she couldn’t transfer more.
Lin then found her other teenage friends attractive and demanded the victim film them secretly. Ninety voyeuristic videos were uncovered from his devices.
But the 14-year-old accidentally sent one of the videos to her flatmate which she took the fall for and was arrested, until her father flew to Singapore and grew suspicious about the entire incident.
Lin was subsequently arrested in a sting operation.
The 14-year-old had to seek psychiatric treatments and retake examinations.
High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng today labeled him as a “depraved sexual predator” who hurt the 20 victims and their families. She warned of the increasing use of technology in sex crimes which Singapore laws have no tolerance for.
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